(AP Photo/Ross D. Franklin). A group backed by the New York hedge fund billionaire George Soros, a longtime bankroller of liberal political causes, is mailing anti-Joe Arpaio fliers to Phoenix-area voters shown here, Tuesday, Sept. 13, 2016, in Phoenix...

By JACQUES BILLEAUDAssociated Press

PHOENIX (AP) - Joe Arpaio, the self-proclaimed toughest sheriff in America who could face criminal charges for ignoring a judge's order to stop targeting Latinos in anti-immigration roundups, may now have a new foe as he seeks re-election - George Soros, the billionaire liberal hedge fund tycoon.

The Republican sheriff already was battered politically and support for him had been slipping when a group linked to Soros mounted an anti-Arpaio attack in an attempt to weaken his bid for a seventh straight term.

The group started sending fliers to Phoenix-area voters two weeks ago, and a mailing last week accuses Arpaio of separating a mother from her child because of an unpaid traffic ticket, botching hundreds of sex crimes investigations and scaring immigrants so much that that they don't report crime.

Arpaio denies the claims and is easily capable of striking back with a formidable $2.9 million still available for campaign spending ahead of the Nov. 8 vote, dwarfing the total $326,000 raised by his challenger, Democrat Paul Penzone, a former Phoenix police sergeant who lost to Arpaio by 6 percentage points in 2012.

But the entry of a Soros-linked group is a gift for Penzone, who acknowledges he'll never come close to matching Arpaio's campaign spending.

Over the last year, Soros contributed $3.9 million to Democrats in law enforcement political races in Chicago, St. Louis, Orlando, Houston, Albuquerque, Lowndes County in Mississippi and Caddo Parish in Louisiana, according to campaign finance records.

Of the seven district attorney candidates Soros-linked groups have backed, two have already been elected and four won primaries. Only one lost.

In New Mexico, Soros gave $107,000 to Raul Torrez, the winner of the Democrat primary in June for the county that encompasses Albuquerque - prompting Republican Simon Kubiak to drop out.

Kubiak said he guaranteed Torrez victory because he could not raise the money he would have needed to counterattack and because he feared a barrage of negative ads.

"I would have accepted it, too," Kubiak said of Soros' donation to Torrez.

Officials with the billionaire's Soros Fund Management referred comment on Soros' political donations to Michael Vachon, a top Soros adviser who serves as his personal spokesman. Vachon did not respond to emailed requests for comment.

The new anti-Arpaio group, Maricopa Strong, registered in Arizona on Aug. 29, the day before Arpaio won his Republican primary against three opponents. It is not required to file a report detailing who made donations and spending until Sept. 29.

But county records state Maricopa Strong's chairwoman is Whitney Tymas, a former public defense attorney in New York and Virginia prosecutor who serves as treasurer for the Soros-funded Safety & Justice national political committee and groups with similar names in Illinois, Florida, Texas and New Mexico.

Tymas did not respond to repeated phone and email messages seeking comment, and Maricopa Strong spokeswoman Tania Torres did not respond when asked by telephone and email if Soros had provided the group with funding.

The tenor of the ads shown for various local races and past positions by Soros-backed groups indicate he's focused on reducing perceived racial disparities within the criminal justice system. His super political action committee gave more than $14 million from 2015-16, including big sums to organizations trying to elect Hillary Clinton.

The anti-Arpaio flier accuses him of being "obsessed with immigrants at the expense of his job" and of making "immigrant communities scared to report crime for fear they will be harassed by the Sheriff's Office."

The 84-year-old Arpaio has denied he is anti-immigrant and that his unfinished business includes an overhaul of his office after his officers were found by a federal judge to have racially profiled Latinos in traffic patrols that made him a national figure in the immigration debate.

Arpaio was found in civil contempt for failing to stop the patrols after the judge ordered them halted in December 2011. Federal prosecutors are deciding whether to file a criminal contempt-of-court case against him punishable by up to six months of jail time if classified as a misdemeanor and an unspecified sentencing range if deemed a felony.

The list of local law and order campaigns Soros has bankrolled have targeted other incumbents criticized for decisions involving race. They include a $408,000 donation to a first-time candidate for prosecutor in Chicago who won the Democratic primary in March against an incumbent criticized for charging a white police officer a full year after the officer shot a black teenager dead.

In Florida, the incumbent prosecutor for the Orlando area known for prosecuting the Casey Anthony case attributed Soros' money to tipping voters against him during the last month of his campaign before the Aug. 30 primary.

Jeff Ashton said opponent Aramis Alaya gained momentum after a Soros-funded group started running a TV spot on alleged legal system racial disparities.

"She was done," Ashton said. "And then the huge amount of money started pouring in."

Funding by the new anti-Arpaio group could also impact the presidential race because Arpaio is a strident Donald Trump supporter. Democrats hope to rally Arizona's Latinos - a voting bloc including many who have long reviled the sheriff - to show up to vote for Clinton in November.

Chad Willems, the sheriff's campaign manager, said he suspected a well-funded anti-Arpaio group from outside Arizona would get involved in the campaign but doubted it would prevent Arpaio from winning.

"He is a known commodity here. The voters do still like him," Willems said.

Penzone said in an interview that he has had no contact with Maricopa Strong or Soros and doubted money funneled into the race would level the playing field because Arpaio has so much. He has spent $8.9 million on his campaign so far.

The development does show that some people outside Arizona want Arpaio out, Penzone said.

"With his name recognition and tenure in office and all that money, he is still falling short of expectations," Penzone said.

Keep these in mind as you contemplate the direction of the American government over the past 50 years and especially since the Obama election.

The Goals of Communism

(as read into the congressional record January 10, 1963, from "The Naked Communist" by Cleon Skousen)

1. U.S. acceptance of coexistence as the only alternative to atomic war.

2. U.S. willingness to capitulate in preference to engaging in atomic war.

3. Develop the illusion that total disarmament of the United States would be a demonstration of moral strength.

4. Permit free trade between all nations regardless of Communist affiliation and regardless of whether or not items could be used for war.

5. Extension of long-term loans to Russia and Soviet satellites.

6. Provide American aid to all nations regardless of Communist domination.

7. Grant recognition of Red China. Admission of Red China to the U.N.

8. Set up East and West Germany as separate states in spite of Khrushchev's promise in 1955 to settle the German question by free elections under supervision of the U.N.

9. Prolong the conferences to ban atomic tests because the United States has agreed to suspend tests as long as negotiations are in progress.

10. Allow all Soviet satellites individual representation in the U.N.

11. Promote the U.N. as the only hope for mankind. If its charter is rewritten, demand that it be set up as a one-world government with its own independent armed forces. (Some Communist leaders believe the world can be taken over as easily by the U.N. as by Moscow. Sometimes these two centers compete with each other as they are now doing in the Congo.)

12. Resist any attempt to outlaw the Communist Party.

13. Do away with all loyalty oaths.

14. Continue giving Russia access to the U.S. Patent Office.

15. Capture one or both of the political parties in the United States.

16. Use technical decisions of the courts to weaken basic American institutions by claiming their activities violate civil rights.

17. Get control of the schools. Use them as transmission belts for socialism and current Communist propaganda. Soften the curriculum. Get control of teachers' associations. Put the party line in textbooks.

18. Gain control of all student newspapers.

19. Use student riots to foment public protests against programs or organizations which are under Communist attack.

20. Infiltrate the press. Get control of book-review assignments, editorial writing, policymaking positions.

21. Gain control of key positions in radio, TV, and motion pictures.

22. Continue discrediting American culture by degrading all forms of artistic expression. An American Communist cell was told to "eliminate all good sculpture from parks and buildings, substitute shapeless, awkward and meaningless forms."

27. Infiltrate the churches and replace revealed religion with "social" religion. Discredit the Bible and emphasize the need for intellectual maturity which does not need a "religious crutch."

28. Eliminate prayer or any phase of religious expression in the schools on the ground that it violates the principle of "separation of church and state."

29. Discredit the American Constitution by calling it inadequate, old-fashioned, out of step with modern needs, a hindrance to cooperation between nations on a worldwide basis.

30. Discredit the American Founding Fathers. Present them as selfish aristocrats who had no concern for the "common man."

31. Belittle all forms of American culture and discourage the teaching of American history on the ground that it was only a minor part of the "big picture." Give more emphasis to Russian history since the Communists took over.

32. Support any socialist movement to give centralized control over any part of the culture--education, social agencies, welfare programs, mental health clinics, etc.

33. Eliminate all laws or procedures which interfere with the operation of the Communist apparatus.

34. Eliminate the House Committee on Un-American Activities.

35. Discredit and eventually dismantle the FBI.

36. Infiltrate and gain control of more unions.

37. Infiltrate and gain control of big business.

38. Transfer some of the powers of arrest from the police to social agencies. Treat all behavioral problems as psychiatric disorders which no one but psychiatrists can understand.

39. Dominate the psychiatric profession and use mental health laws as a means of gaining coercive control over those who oppose Communist goals.

40. Discredit the family as an institution. Encourage promiscuity and easy divorce.

41. Emphasize the need to raise children away from the negative influence of parents. Attribute prejudices, mental blocks and retarding of children to suppressive influence of parents.

42. Create the impression that violence and insurrection are legitimate aspects of the American tradition; that students and special-interest groups should rise up and use united force to solve economic, political or social problems.

43. Overthrow all colonial governments before native populations are ready for self-government.

44. Internationalize the Panama Canal.

45. Repeal the Connally reservation so the United States cannot prevent the World Court from seizing jurisdiction over nations and individuals alike.